


Ice to Fire to Ice

by purplekitte



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Male summoner/black mage WoL, Spoilers through 2.55, Unconditional Love, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7004989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplekitte/pseuds/purplekitte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Give me something to kill. I'll leave a trail of charred corpses to Ishgard, just in case anyone has any doubt what it looks like when I kill someone."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice to Fire to Ice

“Give me something to kill.”

Haurchefant eyed the Warrior of Light with unusual wariness. Not of him but for him. That was a rage he usually associated with dragoons who had lost comrades and given themselves to the Fury entirely. “As the leader of Camp Dragonhead, I cannot afford to turn you down. As your friend, promise me you intend to come back, not kill your enemies until killed yourself.”

“I promise.” He paused and wet his lips to explain. “Believe me. I want to kill the entire Syndicate, not myself, even if the former has been denied to me.”

“Splendid. I accept your oath.”

“Just... give me something to do. That’s what people do. They tell me about something they need killed. As a condition of helping me, because it needs done, whatever. I’ve resented it before, but, Twelve, anything would be better than brooding with no outlet for it. You’ve given me a place here without asking for anything. Let me pay you back, for my sake if not for yours. Please.”

He remembered how the Warrior of Light had been when they first met. Angry at the world and openly hostile to all in it, especially Ishgardians. He’d barely looked at Haurchefant at the time, dismissed him as not an active barrier but not helpful enough to be worthy of acknowledgment. It had made him want to help more than he should have. It had made him want to see a smile on the face of the adventurer who considered this entire jaunt around the snows of Coerthas to find an airship to put down the primal Garuda a huge waste of time when he wanted to be setting Garleans on fire in revenge for the Waking Sands, starting with Livia sas Junius.

“I was just thinking about how we met and it reminds me of the Ixal threat. My knights are always reluctant to give it credence even if they should know better, out here, because it distracts from the glory of fighting dragons. The four Hueloc sisters have been sighted in the east. I could send an entire company after them, and leave the Steps of Faith unguarded, or send you.”

The Warrior nodded. He had used the words he need to. Now he had his quest.

*

The pillars of flame were visible from Camp Dragonhead all the way from Natalan. Watching them, they were like the wrath of the Fury herself, or perhaps Azeyma descended from the heavens.

There was little enough to burn out there. The Ixal preferred to build with wood, but their roosts were sparse, open-air things. Mostly it was snow and rock out there. So the snow burned, the rock. Haurchefant knew dragonfire and just how hot it could get. What looked like smoke from here would likely be mostly steam, from ice superheated. The glow from below was not mere flickering fire, but melted slag, like from a volcano in the forelands.

The Warrior of Light’s constant insistence he had been dragged away before he could burn the entire city of Ul’dah to the ground sounded less like empty threats and more like an honest, terrifying truth.

For hours he watched the fire, telling his assistants and scouts to keep an eye on the conflagration in case it took root in the crowns of the pines and became a forest fire that threatened Dragonhead, or the Dravanians saw the commotion and used it as cover for their own attack, believing the Ishgardian defenses understaffed. He watched until long after it was embers, waiting.

*

The adventurer staggered back alone, like he usually was when Haurchefant or Alphinaud or Tataru hadn’t forced their company upon him. He shook off a first layer of white snow that had fallen on him during the journey back, but his usually-black mage’s robe was still streaked a pale gray with ash. He wasn’t streaked with blood like someone who fought hand-to-hand would be been, just charred with what once had been flesh and blood. He wreaked of it, the burning, the killing.

He looked—not happier than Haurchefant had seen him since he’d gotten here, but freer, loose limbed and predatory as a hunting drake. He looked horrible and he looked right.

Haurchefant wasn’t going to offer condemnation or disgust at such naked blood lust and savagery. He too had killed in anger and vengeance and enjoyed it. But he understood Francel’s complaints a little better. It made you fear for someone you loved to see him like that, even if there was nothing exactly wrong with it.

“You came home to me,” he said, taking the adventurer in his arms for a moment. “Let’s get you something to eat, my friend. That’s what you need.”

“I... Yes, thanks,” he muttered, blinking in momentary confusion. As if he just remembered that that was the important thing, that Haurchefant had offered him a home.

Haurchefant dragged him back to the Falling Snows. Summoning a servant, he commanded, “Bring us some stew, the cooks should have that this time of night... morning, and whatever bread’s left over. You deserve the best, but I think you’d prefer quick to fresh.”

He nodded again, at Haurchefant’s insistent elbowing for a response.

While they waited, Haurchefant kept up the conversation from his end, “I thought you were a summoner. Somehow I had imagined you only dabbled at thaumaturgy.”

The adventurer grinned, lips pulling back sharply to show his teeth. “While my egis are dear to me, I wanted something more visceral. I wanted to burn with my own hands, not Ifrit’s.”

 _Ifrit-egi and I will leave a trail of charred corpses from Ul’dah to Ishgard, just in case anyone has any doubt where I am or what it looks like when I kill someone,_ Haurchefant had overheard him vow while Cid and Tataru shushed him.

Haurchefant leaned close, unselfconsciously burying his face in the rainbow cloth of his shoulder and sniffing appreciatively. “I want my own hands on _you_. You are magnificent.” To his delight, the Savior of Eorzea blushed.

No one stationed at Camp Dragonhead was surprised by their commander doing something wildly inappropriate in public, so there were only rolled eyes from the staff and a friendly shove from the mage beside him. It was a complaint about being embarrassed, not a refusal. He’d shared Haurchefant’s bed every night since he’d been brought in out of the cold.

He started moving his spoon to his mouth mechanically, but as soon as he’d started to chew the somewhat-congealed, lukewarm stew, he perked up with the obvious realization that he was ravenous, and stared shoveling it like a true adventurer who had just been offered free food. Haurchefant beamed.

Haurchefant accepted more provisions from the servants and put a cup of tea down at the adventurer’s elbow. He smiled up at him, really smiled, the shadows of the past for once behind him.


End file.
